Workforce Management Featured Article

Lack of Vacation Leads to Burnout and Lost Productivity

American workers are some of the most productive people on Earth. Perhaps this is because we’re also among the most vacation-deprived people on earth. According to a new study conducted by Harris Interactive (News - Alert) for travel website Expedia.com, Americans are (on average) provided with 14 vacation days from work each year, but only take an average of 10. Compare this to the French, who are given an average of 30 days and use all of them.) In fact, Americans left twice as many vacation days unused this year as they did last year.

The study called the “2013 Vacation Deprivation study,” analyzed the vacation habits of 8,535 employed adults across 24 countries on five continents. Now in its 13th year, the Vacation Deprivation study reveals a stark difference in attitudes towards work-life balance between countries, according to Expedia (News - Alert).

There are currently just over 144 million employed Americans (144,303,000 according to recent BLS data), meaning that Americans collectively failed to take more than five hundred million (577,212,000) available days of vacation.

"No one retires wishing they'd spent more time at their desk," said John Morrey, vice president and general manager of Expedia.com in a statement announcing the results of the study. "There are countless reasons that vacation days go unused – failure to plan, worry, forgetfulness, you name it. But rested employees are more productive employees, so taking regular vacations may well help the company more than failing to do so."

Since there is solid evidence that workers need time off to reset and recharge, the study may imply that American workers are more burned out than any other workers on earth. For companies that rely on their employees to act as brand ambassadors – think sales or contact center staff – unused vacation time ought to be bad news.

So why are so many Americans leaving vacation days on the table? There are a number of reasons, including a desire to “stockpile” days for an illness or a longer vacation in the future, an inability to coordinate vacation time with a spouse or because they are paid for unused vacation time. Some report that they choose not to take vacation time because of job insecurity, believing that management will frown on it.

In the contact center in particular, turnover tends to be high: sometimes very high. Since the link between employee engagement and customer engagement has been definitively proven, contact centers should ensure that their workforces are achieving a decent work-life balance and using their vacation time.

Well rested employees are simply better employees. They make better decisions, they look upon their jobs more positively and they do better work. Most importantly, they show their best faces and attitudes to customers.